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Impact of a family-oriented rehabilitation programme on behavioural and emotional problems in healthy siblings of chronically ill children
- Authors:
- BESIER T., et al
- Journal article citation:
- Child: Care, Health and Development, 36(5), September 2010, pp.686-695.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Healthy siblings of ill children face multiple challenges, such as exposure to the physical and emotional pain of their sibling’s illness, fear, parental distress, and extended separation from the ill child and the parents because of hospitalisations. This study focuses on emotional and behavioural problems in health siblings of chronically ill children, evaluating the impact of a family-oriented inpatient rehabilitation programme in Germany in reducing the sibling’s psychopathology. The programme was a 4-week family-oriented rehabilitation programme for families of children with cancer, cystic fibrosis and congenital heart disease held at the Rehabilitation Clinic in Tannheim in south-west Germany. A total of 259 healthy children aged 4–16 years with a chronically ill sibling were enrolled in the study. Parents filled in the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, while the children answered a self-report quality of life instrument (LQ-KID) at the time of admission and discharge from the clinic and at a 6-month follow-up. Comparisons were performed with a matched control group of 777 children from the German general population. The results showed significant behavioural or emotional symptoms in 30.5% of the healthy siblings, the relative risk of having elevated scores being 2.2 compared with the control group. During the inpatient rehabilitation, symptoms decreased significantly to a normal level. Similarly, the sibling’s quality of life significantly improved, except in the dimension family relations.